Eye Spy
by MarcCabot
Summary: "Yellow Eyes" is one of my favorite Ringo books, but a character I liked met an unfortunate end. This is an altfic where his death is avoided, but nothing is without consequences. Since he can't do what he needs to do, the Posleen are about to get away. Fortunately, a mysterious observer is on hand to remedy the situation...


"There's _another_ of the thrice-damned plastic bird... things!"

The Posleen God-King stopped and his group of bonded normals came to a straggling but reasonably quick halt. Fighting humans eliminated both stupid God-Kings, the intelligent leaders of the reptilian alien species, and stupid normals, their semi-sentient servants, very quickly. And he'd been in Panama, fighting with the forces trying to overrun the humans' canal, for weeks. He paid attention to the environment and his normals paid attention to _him._

He was talking to himself: there were no other God-Kings near enough to hear, and he didn't have his anti-grav saucer's comm system on "broadcast." He'd learned already that complaining made you _very_ unpopular with the leaders of the local Posleen horde, who were usually in an extremely bad temper. Fighting humans, including dealing with their metal-clad super soldiers and the enormous metal boat that cruised up and down the coast dropping artillery on the horde, did that to Posleen.

The anti-air weapons on his saucer wouldn't lock on anything unpowered: it was originally designed to keep from wasting ammunition on birds and windblown debris, but now the "feature" frustrated the Posleen something awful. They weren't clever enough to adjust the sensor suites of their inherited weaponry to get them to target artillery shells - which were just small rocks as far as the sensors were concerned - or these new aircraft that he was _sure _were giving spotting information to the human forces. He'd seen them before, and the Artificial Sentience around his neck knew what he was talking about, but refused to acknowledge that it was a threat. It was mostly made of plastic, and it didn't have an engine or a sensor suite, so the targeting systems it controlled couldn't "see" it.

In frustration he took a shot at the... thing... with his three-millimeter railgun. At this distance the super-dense pellet, traveling at relativistic speed and far too small to try to watch and walk to the target, had nearly no chance of striking whatever it was. And the ammunition was too precious to waste when armed threshkreen - the Posleen word for "humans," which translated to "food with a sting," or even the dreaded armored-suit wearing variety could appear at any time. But he couldn't help himself. Besides, if it so much as touched the thing kinetic energy transfer should do quite a number on it.

It was a near miss. It was such a near miss that in any other _universe_, the pellet would have gone right by the glider's wing and kept going, for all practical purposes, forever. It was moving much faster than escape velocity - not only from the Earth, but from the whole solar system. With time, a little luck and some thin interstellar medium, it might very well have left the galaxy altogether. But it was, in fact, a near miss.

In other words, it was a hit.

The God-King's very large jaw dropped in disbelief as the thing started to fall.

**_#_**

Julio Diaz cried out in shock as the outboard third of his starboard wing vanished. Whatever had done it had happened so quickly the glider didn't even rock from the impact. It just started spiraling. And descending.

Fast.

" _¡Mierda!_" He fought with the controls, such as they were. The glider had only rudimentary maneuvering surfaces. It just wasn't that complicated a craft. And he still didn't dare turn on the tiny engine that allowed the craft a little maneuverability at need. Somehow, he got it into a controlled descent and headed as far from any visible Posleen as he could manage. That was the end of spotting for today. Maybe for the rest of the war, if he couldn't find another glider. There were hardly any left after weeks of fighting. And this one was never going to make it back to a recoverable point.

He'd be lucky if _he_ did.

**_#_**

"That's bad."

The speaker, wearing a nondescript jumpsuit and standing in a nondescript place, was referring to the fact that Julio's glider had been shot down. How he knew this would not have been clear to a casual observer, since there was no visible sensory gear, and certainly no window overlooking the situation, even had the place been anywhere near Panama. (It wasn't.)

"Yep. Real bad. Didn't see that coming."

The other speaker, a woman standing beside the first speaker and dressed identically, shook her head. "Well, okay, we did, but it was so low-probability we just didn't devote the processing time to it we might have. Mistakes happen."

"It wasn't a mistake. It was a low-order probability. Next thing you'll be blaming yourself for the shape of the initial inflation."

"I _still _think we could..."

Firmly, but not without humor, the man - for he looked and sounded quite human - interrupted her. "Never mind that. There's a hole in the projections. There is now more than a seventy percent chance they'll lose the Canal and if that happens the whole thing goes pear-shaped."

"So what do we do?"

He smiled at her. His face was strangely ageless, but the grin felt like that of a very sneaky little boy doing something he _knew _was very sneaky.

"We cheat."

**_#_**

Daisy stood tensely and looked in the general direction of Julio's glider. She knew exactly where it had been when the missile struck it: the sudden burst of heat caused by the impact had been a skyrocket to her Galactic-tech sensors. And if she strained she could still pick it up. As far as she could tell it was going to land safely and hopefully not in the midst of a Posleen horde. Julio had had time only to tell her he was uninjured before he had to concentrate on landing.

Jeff McNair, her Captain, said, "What's the word, Daisy Mae?" He looked worried, although only someone who knew him as well as Daisy did could ever have spotted it. Daisy, the holographic image of the Artificial Intelligence Device that operated the heavy cruiser USS _Des Moines_, had spent weeks studying him, and had senses far sharper than any human. So she saw.

"He's not hurt, and I think he'll land clear of the enemy AO." The Posleen were big fans of what had once been known as the _blitzkrieg _style of warfare, but tended to stick to their areas of operation once they had some loot and food - "thresh" - to divvy up. Until it was all eaten. Daisy could barely stand the idea of the brave Julio, who'd come up with the idea to use gliders to observe the enemy and direct the fire of her huge guns, ending up in a Posleen larder.

"Good. I'm glad he's safe. But we're kind of shooting blind without an observer."

Daisy shrugged, frustration carefully _not _evident on her face. "I'll shoot the teeth out of a God-King's mouth if I know where he is, Captain, but in that terrain without airborne observation I'm just wasting shells." Daisy could in fact fire cannon shells with cameras in them, but the Posleen had worked that out at least. Their targeting sensors may have thought the Panamanian observer gliders were some kind of bird, but observation shells on parachutes were close enough to their "hostile object" parameters to allow them to lock on. And once a God-King's saucer weaponry locked onto something, it ceased to exist in a time best measured in microseconds.

Captain McNair opened his mouth to reply but Daisy held up her hand. "Hang on, new broadcast. On speakers."

A nondescript male voice issued from the bridge's communications system. "_Des Moines_, forward observer. Adjust fire, over."

Daisy and the Captain looked at each other while the comm officer (who mostly kept the microphones clean: Daisy ran the gear) looked at both of them. The Captain spoke first.

"Who the Hell is _that?_"

"I don't know, Captain. The Terran comm gear says it's a radio broadcast on US frequencies. _My_ sensors say, 'Radio broadcast? What radio broadcast?'" Daisy was so confused she actually _looked _confused, which took some doing.

The voice repeated itself. "Forward observer to USS _Des Moines. _Adjust fire. Please acknowledge, over."

"So what do we do, Captain?"

"Could he be a Posleen talking through an AS? Or maybe even somebody working for the Darhel?" He grimaced as he mentioned the foxlike, elf-eared aliens who were ostensibly one of humanity's allies in the war against the Posleen but who everyone knew largely served their own agenda, which mostly involved keeping all the other sentient races in the galaxy in financial if not literal bondage. Most humans believed strongly that they were next on the debt-enslavement program.

She shook her head in frustration. "I don't know. Posleen _might _be able to do it. Who knows what the elves could do?"

The Captain nodded to Daisy. "Forward observer, authenticate. Over."

"I am an observer in position to oversee the main body of the Posleen forces in Grid Sector Twelve. My identity is classified."

"Authenticate or get the Hell off my net, observer." The Captain looked irritated. The horses had been getting better at spoofing humans through their Artificial Sentiences lately. They weren't hard to catch at it, but they were a distraction at best.

"I can authenticate to Daisy, over"

Daisy and the Captain looked at each other again. Daisy had presented herself as a hologram in public, but the fact that she was actually _Daisy_ and not just an AID was a closely-guarded secret. Daisy spoke.

"Authenticate, observer. Over."

"I think it would be a _capital _idea for you to listen to me, Daisy. I have some news that you would do well to register, like in your hometown. Over"

She looked blank for a moment as her artificial brain processed information and then her jaw dropped. The Captain just said, "Spill it, Daisy."

"He's human. He's American. He's probably from Iowa."

"What the _Hell _are you talking about?"

"What's my name, Captain? My _real_ name?"

"You're the USS _Des Moines_. What has that got to do with it?"

"What am I named after?"

"Des Moines, the capital of..." Now it was the Captain's turn to let his jaw down. After a second he said... "That doesn't prove anything. It's public knowledge that the _Des Moines _is assigned to protect the Canal Zone and that Des Moines is the capital of Iowa."

"But do you know what the daily newspaper is in Des Moines?"

The Captain had never been to Daisy's namesake city. "No."

"It's the _Des Moines Register_."

Jaws dropped again, lower. Daisy went on.

"Nobody but a human who knew that would have phrased that that way. The Posleen aren't anything like subtle enough to think of it and a Darhel wouldn't bother to come up with it."

His face firmed. "Okay, but I do know _something_ about Iowa. Let's check this out." He nodded again. "Observer, do you have a bird's eye view of the situation, over?"

"Affirmative, over."

"What kind of bird, over?"

There was a pause and then the voice, sounding amused, said, "I have a hawk's eye view of the situation, over."

The Captain looked at Daisy with dawning hope. "You're right. People from Iowa are called 'Hawkeyes.' I had a roommate from Iowa City. One more thing..."

"Observer, what color is your blood, over?"

There was a shorter pause. "It's red." The Captain's face sagged but the observer continued to speak. "But if it _wasn't_ red, it would be black and gold. Over."

A huge smile lit up the Captain's face. Daisy looked puzzled until she found a reference to fans of the University of Iowa, who were said to "bleed black and gold," the University's colors. Then she smiled too. Her Captain spoke and she relayed his words through the Terran comm system with pleasure.

"Welcome to the Net, observer. You may call for fire, over."

"Roger, _Des Moines_. First coordinates, body of Posleen in the open, estimate 25-kay individuals, multiple saucer formations, Grid..."

Daisy looked at the Captain questioningly and he nodded. Outside, her main guns swung into position and locked onto the position the observer relayed. "Incoming fire, observer, over."

"I am under cover, _Des Moines_. Fire at will, over."

The guns spoke as a single broadside roared, massive shells on their way to Panamanian soil at thousands of miles an hour.

Daisy spoke. "Shot, over."

"Shot, out."

After several seconds Daisy said, apparently to the air, "Splash, over."

"Splash, out."

There was another tense but very short pause.

"_Des Moines_, forward observer. Adjust fire, over."

The Captain was just nodding at Daisy again. She said, "Adjusting, over."

"Direction 1000, left 100. Enemy forces in disarray, will likely move south-southwest at best speed once reformed. Fire for effect, fire for effect, fire for effect. _Over!_" The observer sounded a little more excited than he had up to this point.

The Captain gave a final nod, his face like stone, and Daisy said, "Splash, over" even as the second broadside fired. This time, the guns continued to roar, shell after shell racing heavenward to blast the Posleen to bloody ruin.

The sound of explosions could be heard over the observer's voice this time. "_Des Moines_, forward observer. Fire extremely effective. Continue pattern. Nice shooting, over."

Daisy just smiled and twitched her fingers in time with the firing of the guns. After several minutes she started to look a little concerned, though. She could run through her magazines _extremely _quickly, and she always held a ten-percent ammunition reserve in case she had to offer some last-ditch support to human forces about to be overrun. She was at about 20% on main gun ammo when the radio crackled.

"_Des Moines_, forward observer. Cease fire, cease fire, cease fire. Enemy forces no longer concentrated enough for effect. Estimate at least 90% casualties, possibly higher. At least fifty saucers destroyed, the rest withdrawing at speed. Over."

A wild cheer filled the bridge and Daisy felt her crew whooping down her whole length. She beamed like the sun. Killing Posleen and protecting humanity was what she was _made _for. She lived for moments like this.

Then the radio crackled again.

"_Des Moines_, forward observer. Seems I missed a few. Approximately two-kay individuals advancing my position. Final Protective Fire, Grid..."

The bridge instantly went silent. This new ally out of nowhere had saved the mission and now looked doomed before the echoes had even died away. Daisy said with resolution, "Forward observer, _Daisy_. Specify position. We may be able to extract, over." No aircraft could be used in sight of Posleen saucers, but the _Des Moines _had a small FAST crew with high-speed boats. Maybe if he was near a beach they could...

"Negative, _Des Moines_, extraction impossible, I am now surrounded. I am calling for fire on my position. This will destroy the only remaining body of enemy in the area. Grid..."

She looked helplessly at the Captain. Nothing could withstand a close bombardment from her main guns. Unless the observer somehow had dug a hundred meters under the dark clay of Panama, he was a dead man. Just the _concussion _would kill him if the shells fell that close.

"_Des Moines,_ they've spotted me. They're clustering and advancing at speed. A fast bombardment will kill them all. Immediate suppression, **_over!_**"

The Captain said in a voice like thunder, "Do it, Daisy. One way or another those Posleen have got to die."

She clamped her mouth shut and nodded convulsively. The guns began to speak again, sending out several rounds of fire. She said, "Shot, over. Danger close, danger close, danger close!"

The voice spoke one last time. It didn't use any military lingo: it just said, "Thanks, Daisy. I'll see you around sometime." Then it was silent.

Miles away, the horde of Posleen let loose a collective roar of triumph. The barrage had stopped before annihilating a remnant force hidden behind a small terrain feature. And somehow a surviving God-King's sensor suite had locked onto the threshkreen's radio signal, and every yellow centaur of them the God-Kings could get pointed in the right direction was fighting to be the first one there and take his head.

They were making so much noise that they didn't hear the whistling of the shells until death was practically on top of them. The tracking God-King's saucer was a lucky hit on the first round and its power storage matrix blew up spectacularly, taking out a few more nearby as well as all the other Posleen infantry in the vicinity. The rest were easy meat for the massive explosions.

Back on the _Des Moines,_ Daisy said, "Forward observer, _Des Moines_. Acknowledge, over."

There was nothing. She repeated herself.

Still nothing.

"Gonna put him in for a Navy Cross," the Captain said at last. "Forward Observer, First name unknown, Last name unknown, rank unknown. Hometown, Des Moines, Iowa. Or near enough."

Daisy just looked at him and nodded. A single tear glittered in her eye, but did not fall.

**_#_**

"I have to admit, that was some mighty fine cheating. You _just_ filled the hole in the projections."

The man in the jumpsuit smiled at the woman (ditto.) "Thank you. The only tech I used was a little teeny tiny insert into their Terran comm system. Didn't go near anything Galactic, not that they'd notice, and didn't use an erg of energy anywhere near the action. Like to see _anybody _prove that was anything other than a suicidally brave grunt who was in the right place in the right time."

"I'm never going to hear the end of how your great-sixed was from Iowa, am I? So now what?"

"Now they hold the Canal, at better than ninety-nine percent. That force reduction bombardment was the only hole of any consequence, as long as they figure out that thing with the phosphorus later."

"They will. They're sneaky bastards."

The man smiled even more broadly. "Yep. Proud to call them ancestors. And if we can keep the interference that low-key... we will."


End file.
